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The Importance of Book Reviews for Promotion

September 29, 2015

One of the most important components of a strong book promotion campaign is generating book reviews. When someone is browsing a book store or searching online for a book to read, they often consider reviews before making a purchase. If a book has very few reviews, bad reviews, or no reviews at all, they may question its quality or authenticity.

• When someone tells you they enjoyed your work, follow up with a heartfelt thank-you and ask for a review on Amazon or Goodreads (but don’t be annoying about it!).
• Submit review requests to book bloggers who are open to submissions in your genre and customize each request to fit their requirements since every blogger has a slightly different process.
• Contact Amazon’s top reviewers who say they review self-published books in your genre.
• This process takes time and is tough work. It requires “serious elbow grease to get noticed.”
• Follow up with a thank-you to anyone who posts a review and be sure to retweet/share the positive ones in social media.

At Kirkus, indie authors get the same unbiased, professional reviews as traditionally published authors. The review format is typically fewer than 300 words and includes summary content to give readers context along with a concise, unbiased opinion that can be positive, negative, or neutral. When the review is completed, authors will receive a link to download it. After reading the review, authors can choose to publish it or not. If published, the review will be published on kirkus.com, the author will have unlimited permission to reprint the review and use quotes on book covers and in promotions, the review will be distributed to Kirkus’ licensees including BN.com, Google books, and more, and editors will consider the review for publication in Kirkus Reviews Magazine which publishes an average of 70 indie reviews per month. For more information visit: https://www.reviewmybook.com/how-it-works/

Foreword Reviews

Foreword has offered objective reviews of indie books for more than 15 years. To be considered, authors must send a review copy (printed or digital) of the title at least two months prior to the book’s firm publication date. For more information visit: https://publishers.forewordreviews.com/reviews/

While these book review services do cost money, they are reputable and well-respected in the industry. Because book reviews are often crucial to generating sales, it’s a worthwhile investment.